The Great Benefit Cap Bullshit

George Osborne today once again raised the example of working people getting up in the morning whilst their neighbours laze around on benefits as an excuse for yet another raid on welfare spending.

And once again, despite his rhetoric, he used this attack on unemployed and disabled people as an attack on benefit claimants and low income workers alike. The 1% annual freeze on Tax Credits will largely wipe out any gains for low income workers due to raising the personal tax threshold. If that doesn’t finish them off, then yet more real term cuts to Housing Benefits will further impoverish those who earn least.

Next year the £500 a week benefit caps will be introduced. From now on Cameron has announced that no benefit claimant will receive more than the equivalent family on the average household income. What he doesn’t say is that they don’t already. Families on average incomes are also benefit claimants as a quick check on the numbers soon reveals.

Using the Government’s own benefit calculator, take typical striver Bob, a fictional person who works as a photocopier sales rep and earns £35,000 a year – the average household income. Like good tories, Bob’s wife stays at home to look after their three year old child and two older children. Bob and his wife, Bobbette, live in a private rented three bedroom flat in Lewisham which costs £300 a week, which is cheap for the area. They have no significant health problems and are not disabled.

Bob takes home around £506 a week in wages. So far he’s already beating the skivers down the road. But Bob and Bobbette are also entitled to significant benefit payments, receiving Child Tax Credit of £16.33 a week, Child Benefit of £47.10, and £187.90 Housing Benefit a week. This boosts Bob and Bobbette’s income to £758.39 a week, or £458.39 a week after rent. They are not rich, but they have a livable income.

Now let’s say Bob gets made redundant. The family can claim £111.45 in Job Seekers Allowance but lose all of their Tax Credits and most importantly Bob’s wages. This leaves the family with £641 a week to live on, or £341 after rent (including Council Tax Benefit which reduces the amount they receive in their hands to 323.82). Tory voting Bob and Bobbette are horrified to learn that they are actually £117.49 a week worse off on benefits than they were in work (and have defected to UKIP in protest).

Should Bob or Bobbette be lucky enough to be diagnosed with a terminal illness and qualify for Employment Support Allowance then they will receive just over £40 a week extra, which still places them significantly worse off than they were in work.

When the benefit cap is introduced next April Bob and Bobbette’s household income will be reduced to just £500 a week, leaving £200 a week for a family of five after rent is paid. Out of this they may now have to pay some Council Tax. As they already live in a cheap flat, in one of the cheapest parts of London, they are unable to move to cut their rent; everywhere else is more expensive. They are the lucky ones. Most people elsewhere in the capital will have higher rents to pay. Larger families will suffer most, and could be left with just £100 weekly per family – that’s if they are able to find a property for the maximum available Housing Benefit of £400 a week.

The benefit cap is based on a bare faced lie that those on out of work benefits are receiving more in total than equivalent working families. It’s only in London where families approach anything like £500 a week on benefits, and even then the bulk of that goes straight into the pockets of grasping landlords.

Both working and non working low income families alike will be poorer due to Osborne’s benefit and Tax Credits freeze. But from next April many unemployed, unwell or disabled parents of average sized families will no longer be able to afford to feed their children. And all because of a lie whipped up by Tory politicians in an attempt to blame the poor for the problems caused by the rich.

104 responses to “The Great Benefit Cap Bullshit”

Dear Gimpeon
Didn’t get up this morning. My blinds have been closed all day.
Made it to the shops to get some some soup, fruit and lemons.
Have a cold but it feels really shit with the ME

I hope some day very soon I will get well again so I can have a life.
Didn’t choose the one I have. Tell you what let’s do a swapsee.
You have a long term illness that people take the piss out of and I will have a bash at being Chancellor. Just to make things fair, you can go out planting trees in the frozen clay for your benefits like you and your chump chums are making people do.

It will be the most you have ever done for the environment despite the promise to be the greenest administration evah! Oh I doooo so apologise.
You are giving aid to the Third World to go green so we don’t have to.
(Wondering where the money is coming from though Gimpeon, isn’t there a budgetary shortfall, which is why you have frozen benefits?

Wow, no wonder they call you Mr. Consistent!
Anyway very tired so hugs and kisses and may the Number 8 ball be for ever stuffed in your centre pocket.
Paul xxx

Osborne’s misrepresentation works. I’ve just seen proof of this on Sky News where a token housewife was asked if she thought it was fair Osborne was freezing working tax credits to rises of 1% yearly. “I think these people should get up in the morning and go to work” she says, all proud of herself. Obviously the silly cow didn’t understand a word that was said to her. No doubt the majority are just as ignorant. Osborne successfully mines this ignorance so it’s a good tactic for him.

The media should be ashamed of themselves, clearly many are towing the line in the event of the phone hacking scandal and the blow-up over that, it seems these days the press are slowly becoming submissive to the government pretty much like the BBC, i reckon this country will be wrapped up and sealed if the tories manage to win the next election, we shall see many people leaving the country as it slowly becomes a rich elitist island governed by a fascist party… this goes way beyond so-called “Austerity”.

Regardless of a newspapers political leaninings they should always appear to be impartial in relation to certain news stories but they don’t even try that hard these days, it’s as if they go through the motions pretty much like how the country has become beaten and weakened by the disillusionment of life under this government which is slowly taking on a worrying style of dictatorship, no one in government and their voters suffer.

The people suffering and fearful for the future are the true and sincere backbone of this country, including those who defended it’s shores in WW2 and those who feel demoralized each morning they get up and go to work for a meagre wage and feeling angry for being fed a pack of lies as to who they should blame for this feeling. It is important to remember at this time we still live in a so-called democratic country where it’s citizens have a vote that is not rigged or corrupt like many troubled countries, we can still vote their arses out come that time, my fear is what will be left to vote for and what state of mind will people be in if this is allowed to go on right up until 2015.

My optinion is that i cannot see this coalition existing up to the next election, i can see the cracks forming as they have been for quite some time, and it may seem the people of this country don’t have a voice but they do, it’s just
some areas of society do not feel affected by the decisions yet but this will change in 2013. Although it may seem harsh to say this it can be considered fact that tidal waves of opinion often come about from how people become affected day to day and that is simply on a selfish level and will have no real bearing on how our fellow citizens may be affected, sure there might be a little sympathy but when it knocks on your door and pushes past you THEN it starts to pick up momentum.

Benefits for the top earners, up to £107,000 tax cut even if your earnings are from shares or a trust fund amongst other juicy scams, paid for by cuts to the lowest earners, and the unemployed. That is ALL this wintery statement is about. All else is window dressing and waffle.
This is about punishment for the poor.
Rewards for the rich.
Designed, as JV himself has discovered, to FUCK US UP!🔫😢
💚

I watched that broadcast from start to finish, the best part was when that slimy WORM osbourne was torn a new one by that elderly labour MP😀
and as for his comment about the guy who goes to work while his neighbours curtans are drawn. i sorta agree but if there are no fucking jobs because IDS and his band of cronies have paied companies to take on people under workfair /workprogram/and any other free labour scheme
the how is the person whos “curatins are drawn” supposed to get a job.
can you magic one up pauldaniels styley? pif paf pof IDS has taken all the jobs

Yes there are some people who will just be happy to sit on there ass all day long watching tv and getting stoned/pissed etc. but how dare he compair the rest of us who want to work and want to pay our way.

and god forbid the rich should be made to pay higher taxes and a mansion tax that would be such a travistery wouldent it.

next time you get to vote make sure you register and get your vote in ontime so they cant use the excuse of running out of ballot papers.

You have fallen for the curtains drawn scenario, this is the true picture for the majority in this situation.
1.They work nights
2.They have retired
3.They are too ill and are waiting for a carer to turn up and do it for them.
shame really cause what you say otherwise is true.

4. they are on holiday (including annual leave)
5. they work long shifts (i.e. extra sleep on day off)
6. they couldn’t be bothered to open the curtains (and went to work)
7. they do it to keep the heat in (as already suggested)
8. they work flexible hours (start work later… i.e. curtains would be drawn 6-8am; but come home later)
9. they only work term time (and its school holidays – n/a right now)

I havent fallen for anything. i do realise there are people in those situations you have pointed out. and my comment was not directed towards them.
osborune could have chouson better words but he he didnt because he wants to insite hate in communities to eventually push out the poor from the area they live into rats nests where their live will be so much worse.
during the broadcast he showed nothing but utter contempt for those who challenge him and his plan for the country only adds more debt to
the UK. if the rich dont like his plans then they should move to a country that suits there needs better.

In many respects it’s a myth, merely propaganda to seal the deal in the working middle classes minds, the type i mentioned elsewhere, those who believe in their lies and deceipt and because they are working middle classes and paying tax they think they are holier than thou, as i said before they need to wake up and smell the coffee and get off their high horses because at the end of the day the tories have little respect for the working classes, they use them as a tool to do their dirty work so the dirt does not get on their own hands.. the man should be taken to a place of acceptable class and horse-whipped at dawn in the presence of people his decisions have destroyed… he is the tool.

“Yes there are some people who will just be happy to sit on there ass all day long watching tv and getting stoned/pissed etc. but how dare he compair the rest of us who want to work and want to pay our way.” – you have fallen for Daliy Heil propaganda. No need to try and distance yourself from some mythological creature.

I saw the autumn statement too, the myth is in the stereotyping in the wordings he chooses to use and the result of how people who he aims them at become conditioned into his mindset. It becomes almost a form of subliminal processing.. sadly it’s working, that tells us more about the kind of society we live in as opposed to the early post-war mentalities and what it took to get us through that war. I bet the men and women who fought for this country who may still be alive are dismayed and saddened how low we value our fellow men and women.. development and decline.

Sure we have skivers and lazy people in society who just blow their dole on booze and skunk and watch tv all day or may go out for trouble, these people have no place to hide but in this area there are people who might not be so strong and have fallen to drink and drugs as a means of blotting out the worries in their lives regardless to all of these reforms.

In his words if you are 1. Unemployed, 2.Mentally Ill, 3.Physically Ill or 4.All of those three, you are nothing, they don’t want you, you are just sub-human, they have no plans of mechanisms for you except the slowly erroding services burdened by an influx of people seeking help. It grates more so that we have a multi-millionaire.. as Eric Bristow might say “With a Gold not Silver Spoon up his arse”. The stereotyping is the myth not your opinions regarding the autumn statement, on that i agree with you 100%… the propaganda, and the almost subliminal methods are a big worry to democracy and genuine opinion, especially those who may not be so well educated in political slight of hand.

Never mind all this stuff about tax-collecting v tax evasion/avodance.
It’s about education.
If people weren’t taught to be utterly selfish; if we were taught that co-operation and sharing ARE self-interest, then the outlook for the common good would be brighter.
Instead we are given dark and bitter divisiveness as the preferred social model.
Worse than the survival of the fittest.
The survival of the greediest.
💣🔫💣🔫💣🔫💣🔫💣🔫💣

Maybe the person’s curtains are drawn because they feel dead inside, in this cold, heartless, fear driven violent society.
Where being on any kind of out-of-work benefits or disability can instantly draw state-sponsored, state-sanctioned hate crime and the constant threat of sanctions, where poverty is a crime, where the working class has been demonised and battered down into servitude.
Where illegal wars are lauded and the war criminals touted as heroes.
The ConDemNation.

Without double glazing keeping curtains drawn and staying in bed is best way to reduce heating costs. I worry that people who work all night cleaning offices and stocking shelves will be scorned by neighbours who assume they are not working.

Stop giving people ideas chibipaul things are bad enough, I’ve just seen the bobette interviewed on channel 4 telling how she passes closed curtains on her way to childminder then waitress job. She says with the freeze on tax credits it will hardly be worth her while. She is free to join those in the dole queue that are probably doing more work than her job seeking anyway. I wonder why she has taken such a low paid job that she needs tax credits, this is just letting employers off the hook from paying a decent wage.

I was sitting in the disabled seat on the bus the other day (on my way to the ever lovely and jolly ATOS interview). When I was approached by a woman shouting at me to get out of the seat, as i was “obviously not disabled”. I told her I was, and waved my lavatory key at her! She then starts on a rant about how i must be a scrounger!
You couldn’t put in in a script! No one would think it believable.
Just found your blog and i am following it. Great post.

WHEN
“When our kids have turned to drugs or crime
When they find no future here,
When politicians flout the law,
When the few get the greatest share,
When those who caused Recession’s loss
Keep the profits and then insist:
‘The poor and weak must pay the cost’
Rebel – Revolt – Resist.

When they keep us down by more expense
In jobs that do not pay,
Whe they keep our time so managed
That we’re anxious every day,
When they fill our minds with fear and lies
(New laws for Terrorists!),
Keep in mind that they mean US!
Rebel – Revolt – Resist.”

I can’t stand my neighbours. They are Little Englander fascists….you oughtta hear them.
I keep my bedroom curtains closed most of the time because I can’t stand the sight of them.
They know nothing of me.
I tell them lies. They believe them. They are used to believing lies. That is why they are the way they are. It’s what they are taught. They question nothing. They read The Sun. They believe what they see/hear on TV.
They comfort each other with prejudicial lies and brainwashing.
Vicarious soap life, played out daily. With a menacing twist of barely subsumed violence simmering away. Waiting, waiting.
This, the reality of life in the 2012 ConDemNation.

If this goes on beyond 2015 (unlikely) but should it do so i wonder if they will bring back National Service? especially if they are so concerned about fit men and women living off the state and putting nothing back in to the country, they will happily add new legislation to force people to sign away their lives to force people to fight for a country they no longer identify with, much less a government they have no love for, if they do not comply then a different kind of MP will come and get them. It has been mentioned but i reckon this is a non starter becasue it would mean their own sons and daughters would not be exempt and would have to join up instead of living off their parents with a massive allowance each year and join the ranks of the idle rich like some of those on Made in Chelsea.

We don’t think too much about the idle rich do we because we think they do not impact, but they are no different except they may speak posh and have a boarding school upbringing or at least private school where all aspects of their lives was spoon-fed from the cradle to the grave, they exist purely for self-gratification, they join clubs of their own kind… does this ring any bells?… check this article from last year, it will give you an idea…http://www.the-bastard.com/index.php?section=42&page=5746

1.1 If you are taking all reasonable steps to look for work – you have nothing to worry about from Universal Jobsanctionmatch” (“all reasonable” for the purposes of this agreement is subject to redefinition on as often as we decide to be reasonable). There is no need to be more specific than this as we need to be able to alter the definition of “reasonable” for every individual so that their adviser is able motivate and offer them the ‘right’ incentives.

1.2 if you have nothing to hide, there is nothing for you to worry about if other people look at what you are doing and so opening your curtains can be seen as part of a reasonable daily requirement.

1.3 It may be (at some time in the future) that if we do not believe you do open your curtains on a regular enough basis, or have bought additional window dressings of any type, we would issue a direction for you to open them between 9am and 5pm on weekdays, as well as at weekends. Should you fail to comply with this, we may direct you to keep them open all the time, move out & come and live at the job centre – then you won’t need to worry about your curtains any more, will you?

Has Osbourne considered that there are couples who leave their curtains drawn in the winter as they both leave for work when it’s dark and return home when it’s dark? No, didn’t think so. Encouraging hate crime is a crime in itself and it’s not the kind of world I want to live in.

Are we seeing a new hate crime – curtainism? What have curtains done to deserve this level of hatred? Joking aside, Gideon & CMD’s derision surely amounts to incitement to violence? If someone choses to keep their curtains/blinds closed that is absolutely their business, no one elses.

It’s also been widely accepted until around 3 weeks ago, that correspondence from a private individual to a potential employer would remain that person’s own business and no-one else’s. If the argument contra to this can be made, it’s not that big of a leap to suggest that everyone should be ‘transparent’ about their movements in daylight hours – if they have nothing to hide. Anyone ‘choosing’ to stay in between 8 am and 6 pm “without good reason” instead of being at a recognised or designated workplace, should not expect and won’t continue to deserve the same right to privacy as those who have “done the right thing” and found regular work. Everyone who is aiming to reach the right goal in the right ways will HAVE NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT! They should also not be out, during these times, so should remain clearly visible.

(For the avoidance of doubt, it’s probably a good idea to have some identifying sign on the door/in the window, so as to be able to show that this is the house of a genuinely work-avoidant person and not, for eg., someone with a private income who isn’t claiming benefits). Maybe in the form of a piece taken from some generic ‘curtain-type material’. More responsible members of society passing by on their way to genuine work (paid or not) can be assured that the government is doing everything possible to motivate and support all workless individuals who have curtains & choose to close them, even in their own homes. Shouting encouragement through (open) windows – windows should be kept open to maximise the conditions for effective job searching – will remain optional. Reporting any non-opening within the times specified to the relevant authorities will probably be the most effective and widely-accepted way to ‘incentivise’ this group, however. This could be done easily and anonymously with perhaps a small financial reward or a voucher for money-off the next heating bill for anyone who would like to help to “stop window cheats”.

This won’t be allowed to continue. There are very few, if any “good” reasons why a jobseeker should be in bed in the daytime, with or without their heating on. Ideally they wouldn’t even have beds – but could sit at a computer screen throughout the night as well as all day. They should knit themselves and then wear a few more jumpers like everyone who works in a cold workplace has to do. It’s soon to be part of the agreed conditions for carrying out a proper job to not allow yourself to become what we consider to be “too” warm (as this can lead to applying for fewer jobs – due to feeling “too relaxed”. When Universal Credit arrives there will be fewer & fewer options for anyone not to be clearly visible in the window of their house (while they still have one). Computer switched on; Curtains open.

People will already know about this due to it’s being regularly mentioned and ‘normalised’ as a construct.

Do you always follow sound bites from television ,it has nothing to do with anyone who wants to stay in bed ,that is a sign of depression due to the fact there are NO JOBS do a little research before you pontificate on the lives of others please

simmo2012
it was an attempt at irony (not so funny I agree). I am the person I was addressing in my post (& thousands of us not in work through no ‘fault’ of our own. This is just an attempt at relieving the distress I’m feeling so I can try to re-concentrate on what I should be doing (looking for a job) but am struggling due to fear/anger and disgust with what’s being done to anyone unlucky enough not to have work at the present time.

No problem ,it has been successive Governments that have relied too heavily on the Banking system rather than create real jobs ,I have every sympathy for the unemployed and think they should be on £113 per week to have a reasonable standard of living .These cuts are immoral and inhumane and am afraid the Government and Media are trying to get working people against the unemployed ,both using divide and conquer tactics .There are no jobs .Nigel http://www.brokenbritainundertories.com

Weep not untermensch, your sacrifice is not in vain. Your unpaid labour, penury and life-long debt, will fund the building of some lovely shiny new gold plated swimming pools for our wealth creators, to reward them for their success in bringing this country the prosperity that we enjoy.

People,. get real. A £500 a week benefit cap is the least we should be thinking about, when this country is massively overdrawn and we cannot pay our way. In the same way that individuals get into debt because they spent more than they could afford, the UK has done exacly the same thing with benefits over the last decade. I speak as someone who, after being very ill, was able to find a job but had no salary increase for 4 years. Index linking of benefits was a luxury.

The idea that the country is severely in debt is actually an abstraction. The huge figures that are bandied about only really have any significance if you buy into the concepts, and the only reason this Tory administration is buying into the idea is to justify the demolition of the welfare state. There are perfectly sane alternatives to the idea that debts are fixed, they are not. When individuals get into debt, it is usual that the ‘debt’ is bought for a fraction of the value, and the debt becomes payable to the new ‘owner’ who stands to gain, as the original amount borrowed, (itself an abstraction rather than money that actually exists) still has to be repaid, along with any interest that accrues on that debt.

Iceland, an early ‘victim’ of the global financial meltdown actually implemented a sane and workable way around the debt. They simply defaulted, with the result that their economy is now growing again at quite a healthy rate:

That’s what a difference a sane government of a country that actually gives a damn about the people who lives there can achieve.

In the meantime we have to live with the lies and deceit of the Tories and their sidekicks, the LibDems and New Labour who constantly tell us that we’re skint. It’s a lie, as we all know, as there always seems to be enough money around for illegal wars.

I did not ask to be ill and did not ask to be sacked by my former boss for being ill either. I had a reasonably well paid job which I had been doing for the past 10 years but sadly it was not good enough. I cannot find another one because I have disabilities and no one wants to employ me anymore. I am a skilled Medical Secretary who could bring immense experience to a doctors surgery or a hospital but not even Sainsburys wanted me because they told me I could not be a multi skilled employee!! how bad is that. I do not keep my curtains closed in the day time and do not smoke or drink or take drugs either but this government pays those who do drink and take drugs DLA because they have an addiction to them. I want a job I truly do but do not want to be labelled as a lazy and good for nothing lay about because I am not. George Osbourne hang your head in shame because for those 10 years I worked for the government too and I know how Civil Servants work!! I will NOT be voting ever again for such heartless uncaring idiots. Don’t get me started as I could go one.

it does make me chuckel when they say “im hurting im in pain” LMFAO
Pain they say !!! I suffer from neurofibromatosis type 1, i have tumors that grow on the end of nerve endings and the pain i have to deal with
id not wish on anyone, the pain killers are adctive and i try not to reach for them all the time.
the “pain ” they are feeling is just withdrawal from the CRACK they are clucking like a bernard mathews butterball chicken for. why should they be intitled to DLA when they are not disabled. A friend of mine who i used to know turned to drugs uses her DLA of £40 per week along with the ESA shes on which is about £101PW so thats £404pw in ESA and the DLA £160
£560PM to fund her drug habbet .

It is, or at least, should not be about whose pain is worse and why they have it.
I would rather that person didn’t blow benefits on drugs, but I fear what would happen to them if benefits was withdrawn much more.
If it was so simple to get clean then there wouldn’t be a problem with substance abuse.

That said, what you have to deal with sounds as bad as it gets!
With no drying out clinic to alleviate the pain either.😦

I can promise you that stopping welfare payments to drug addicts will not solve the drug problem. All that will happen is that the suffering for the rest of the population will increase through rising serious crime. The “Give yourself a shake” approach I also promise will not make any significant diference when it comes to class A drugs.

You may not see it written so boldly but I can summarise one strand of thought from the “free-market” that would liberalise such dope since it is a cheap way of euthanasing “unproductive” elements of society which do not generate profits for the wealthy. I don’t know the latest figures but it used to cost around £20-30k for a person to be funded onto to a rehab course run by professionals but even this came with a poor success rate.

The Social Darwinists (even though they don’t like this name because of the Nazi’s) would argue that giving them the drugs for free is the cheapest solution since, for example, the unwanted progeny of Thatcherism, who took up heroin when youth unemployment became very high, are now dead and are no longer a cost to them. When money becomes the reason for existence they would then argue that disabled people and all other people who cannot serve the elite are a drain on society and it is only kind to end their miserable lives sooner rather than later.

Drugs are a sympton and not the source of woe. What young person wants to start heroin knowing that it is likely to be the source of a very premature death?

Hard drugs are a product of despair in a society which bombards young people with the myth that you too can one day be on the Dragons Den or teaching “apprentices” that the road to wealth is the route of all happiness and that joy is a warm iPad or iphone or some brainless celebrity tv show . Drugs are used to fill the hole named despair when it is realised there is no job for you, that you never will climb the ladder of “success” because the odds are stacked infinitely against you. Sheep without shepherds, lying greedy incompetent politicians as your leaders.

JFK once said “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich” but the brainless ones we have as leaders are in an opaque cloud of their own making and cannot see anything outwith their self-interests.

Yes, they may have set the underclasses against themselves (divide and conquer) to distract them from the real issues but if they do not turn back soon I fear they will reap what they have sown when the “mob” mentality they have created turns against them, a day I truly hope never comes.

I totally agree with you everything in life is cyclic and the food banks were around in the 20s!! my goodness what ever next I ask, will it be camps like have been suggested for those who should work? or should it be yellow arm bands perhaps like my mother told me about and she is still alive. To think our veterans fought to give us a better life and what kind of life are we having now is it better? no not really. I wish I was Guy Fawkes you know.

Trust me, you would not want to be Guy Fawkes, Let us not forget the outcome… drawn backwards by a horse, head near the ground, put to death halfway between heaven and earth as “unworthy of both”. The genitals would be cut off and burnt before their eyes, and their bowels and hearts removed. They would then be decapitated, and the dismembered parts of their bodies displayed so that they might become “prey for the fowls of the air” and the head usually displayed at london bridge on a stake for all to see as a warning against anyone wishing to commit high treason. If women were found guilty of high treason they were simply burnt at the stake. I’m sure if they could get away with it today they would look at these dark age policies and reconsider bringing them back!, but i have a feeling it would likely be a case of turning the tables.

I am unemployed; I get up before seven most mornings. I go to bed most nights before 10.30. I DO NOT watch 99% of the shit that is on TV. I do not smoke. I rarely drink. Most of the money that I have left over out once I have paid my dues goes into (a) keeping my photography going (b) fuel for a car that I am part owner of – a £2000 old banger that my brother and I brought with our inheritance, and finally (c) clothes, toiletries and other essentials. So when this fucking chinless uber-muppet uses shaming language in the way that he has done, I get royally fucked off by it. It’s very simple shit-fer-brains. THERE ARE NO FUCKING JOBS. Your pals in the city have fucked up the economy big style, cunt. But rather than making THEM cough up, you have instead chosen to target those who are LEAST able to defend themselves. Typical behavior of a bully and a fucking coward.

I’m ashamed to admit I used to work in the “welfare to work sector” on Flexible New Deal and the Work Programme. I’ve seen it from both sides as I’ve also been unemployed in recent years. The WP is one gigantic, crooked, twisted festering pile of bullshit. It’s a con. Providers get paid even if they didn’t actually have anything to do with finding that person a job. In fact, less than 10% of the “job outcomes” they get paid for are jobs they sourced/assisted with – there’s a statistic they’ll never admit to. So 90+% of what they are paid is taken under false pretences – it’s fraud. I’ve been there, I’ve met hundreds of unemployed people and I know the vast majority are in that position through no fault of their own. They WANT to work. The politicians need to stop feeding the myth that if you’re on benefits you’re automatically lazy scum. They need to cease the WP legalised fraud. They need to stop looking at this from behind their gated driveways – you can tweak the system all you want, it won’t alter the most crucial factor… The economy is fucked. Industry is fucked. Businesses are going under at an increasing rate, day by day. Those who want work can’t because there aren’t enough jobs. Whilst those who really do CHOOSE benefits as a career (they do exist in the minority) just sit back, pop out more and more kids they can’t afford and you fucking let them get away with it. Weed out that element from the genuine ones (they’re easy to spot, just walk into Starbucks any given weekday morning…), make them sort their shitty attitudes out and start doing something for those who really would rather support themselves than sit at home, hang out in coffee shops talking shit, watching Jeremy Kyle and breeding all fucking day. Stop paying people to breed, start making the “work pays” mentality achievable by helping employers create jobs. Focus on attacking the real offenders, it’s not hard, then the welfare system will be seen for what it was intended for in the first place – a means to help those in NEED, not those who simply WANT or CHOOSE…

Here’s a first hand example of how they’ve twisted the welfare system – They hand out sanctions for “non-compliance” which can be a number of things – not making enough effort, not applying for enough jobs, refusing to take a job which will leave them worse off (that’s becoming more common given increasing travel costs), looking at the G4S Job Centre security guard the wrong way… These sanctions are determined by “decision makers” (I’m surprised anyone at senior level in the DWP can decide which colour socks to wear in the morning!). Mr A gets reported for not applying for enough jobs. The decision makers see that he’s submitted a statement which says he can’t work because he has to look after his 4 kids (all of which were born whilst he and his girlfriend were out of work) as his girlfriend can’t work because of her own “issues” – she’s a “recovering” drug abuser (self inflicted then…). “Can’t” work??? The sanction is rejected as they can’t be seen to leave his kids out of pocket. He’s walks away laughing. Literally laughing. Mr B goes through the same process. He’s is sanctioned for 4 weeks. Difference is he doesn’t have kids, he’s single. He wants to work. His “crime”? Refusing to apply for a job he wasn’t qualified for, therefore knowing it would be a waste of time. They overlooked the 22 applications and 3 interviews he attended that week. That’s the system in a nutshell – if you have kids you escape punishment. The Mr A element of society (again, they’re a minority but a very problematic one) soon learn the simplest, easiest trick of all – just keep breeding. And yes, to them it is just breeding. Most of the time they can’t wait to get into Starbucks (the irony of their favourite haunt!) and sit chatting to other morons whilst their kids are either dumped to one side in a pushchair or, worse still, down the road in a creche or play centre at our expense. If you’ve worked, paid in, supported your family if you have one, then find yourself on your arse because your employer can’t keep going then you’re on your own. You’ll get “help” but only for as long as DWP tolerate you. However, if you pop out 4 kids by the age of 20, never work, never pay in and have no intention of supporting yourself then you get to ride that horse for as long as you want. The taxpayer will even feed it, stable it and pay for it’s vets bills. Don’t believe me? Go take a look around you. To the likes of them, kids are nothing more than a free pass. They take the piss out of those who are working and those who make that fortnightly visit with a sick feeling in their gut because they remember those days when they weren’t made to feel like they are begging. They remember what it’s like to work, support yourself and go home each day with your head held high.

The jobcentre don’t take “travelling expenses” and “in-work” expenses into consideration in their “better of in work” calculations. If your take-home pay is £0.01 more that you receive in benefits you are “better off in work” – it is that simple, at least to the jobcentre.

Yosser, I worked closely with Customs and Excise in the late1980’s early 90’s when Thatcher cut the budget for this department and seemed to lead to a massive increase in the importation of class A drugs just at the time when long term youth unemployment was going through the roof. Ten years later I was working in soup kitchen meeting the unwanted kids of Thatcherism whose hopeless lifes had been crippled through drug addiction. People can start to drink or take heavy drugs as a way of forgetting for a time but by the time they find out that they don’t cure but they multiply the effects of depression it’s to late and often they don’t seem to care anymore.

The break down of a family life is a well covered subject by politicians who have the money to indulge in serial polygamy- marraige, divorce, marriage ….. because they have enough money to deal with many of the resultant issues. They can pontificate about the scroungers who deserve nothing. The break down of family life is just one of a multiple set of issues that relate to the corrosive effects of “free” market economics that destroys values and communities. So a long as the power players can accumulate massive wealth beyond anything they can ever possibly consume (the biggest addiction of all), and so long as they control the discourse through their media, they are more than happy to set the lower orders fighting against themselves rather than attack the source of much of societies problems, i.e themselves.

And so this particular right-wing media narrative reaches its conclusion, from its humble beginnings as a general gripe against the Labour government’s welfare spending. Over the years, more and more stories have been published, focusing only on the absolute lowest end of society – the “work-shy” “scroungers” living the easy life on the taxpayer’s money. The government naturally discourages any story that tells the truth about the cost of fixing this “problem” for the majority of the country. They stirred up public feeling against welfare as a whole, until they had people actually campaigning for measures that would make themselves worse off.

This narrative has spawned sub-narratives, of course – the right-wing lie that there are plenty of jobs available and that the unemployed must *all* be work-shy, for one. That one is particularly odious, as it’s led to the rise of workfare – giving big corporations some free help, while at the same time reducing the number of jobs available.

The sad part is that the citizens of the UK have fallen for it hook, line and sinker. They have no idea that they’ve been manipulated by the media, its strings pulled by the Tories, and have been for decades. The public will believe what the papers tell them to believe, and vote for whoever the papers tell them to vote for; it was ever thus.

This year I’ve got an unusual request for my Christmas present. What I’d like this year is I would like you to get your reindeer to bite David Cameron, Gideon Osborne, Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Theresa May, Maria Miller, Sayeeda Warsi, Kwasi Kwarteng, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Chris Skidmore and Elizabeth Truss from head to toe, drag them through the snow, trample them underfoot and then leave them naked in the snow without any supplies in the middle of the North Pole.🙂

I am sick of the life I have and I want a bloody job, I am sick of the threats I get, I have a degree ccan’t get a bank loan cos they spent all the money on dodgy deals, but us poor bastards are paying for it. I got told by some bitch in the dole office that I watch Jeremy Kyle – yeah right. I could have punched the simpering cow. I live hand to mounth and with this cindem scum who were born in to muck. I have to put up with the crap I get. I keep my curtains drawn cos or the nosy cow across the way staring in my house whilst she dodges paying tax to her child minder.

I say bugger the curtains and all that crap, leave them closed for an eternity until they grow old and dusty and drop down by themselves and certainly see out this coalition. Hey.. at least we open our own curtains, they probably have someone to do that for them… a housekeeper, or in their words “PLEB” who they pay minimum wages to or threaten with deportation should they ask for a raise. I find it almost laughable this aspect of government opinion regarding those on benefits, in many ways it’s insulting and disrepsectful for government who supposedly rose from the golden gutter of priviledge to use such words and in doing so clearly undermines their own respectability and shows them up clearly for what they are, proving money does not buy class neither does privilege.

In experience i have often found the most respectful and classy of people tend to be those with very little money and little to show on a material level but what they lack in that aspect they gain in buckets in other areas, the areas this government think they have but in reality don’t even possess even in a miniscule amount. It was said recently the country is being run by unexceptional men with exceptional educations, for all their education they possess no redeeming qualities including any respect. It’s not rocket science.. if you treat people with disrespect, they will treat you in the same way… legislation cannot change that, just as you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink, at least we have reached that far in evolution, but i guess the government do drag their hands along the floor as they walk in a classy manner.🙂

BROKEN BRITAIN UNDER TORIES – RE-LAUNCH
Cameron’s re-launch yesterday was obviously a diversity tactic away from the resignation of Lord Strathclyde Tory Leader in the House of Lords and other home goals in the last half year .A reference likened the Coalition to Ronseal ‘it does what it says on the tin’ I think there was a serious typo involved here and it should have been Rentokil ,the best product on the market for social hygiene ,cleansing and gets rid of unwanted pests irreversibly .Cameron is a desperate man wanting to reform the House of lords and Parliamentary Boundaries ,the only way to have any hope of clinging onto power .The Liberal Democrats defeated the Government 50 times on welfare reform in the Lords ,what state would we all be in if they hadn’t – say goodnight Davehttp://www.brokenbritainundertories.com

It is true that Poosa is bordering on the obese and her ribs have disappeared and she weighs 37 lbs and
really should weigh more like 28, and she is
not Dieting Using Laxatives. Sometimes weight loss is to eat fewer calories.
People have all sorts of quick weight loss diet –>These
food items include calcium too, which is, breakfast keeps you going throughout the day.
There’s nothing about dieting using laxatives, in and of itself to be afraid of.

[with thanks to Tony Collins and Campaign for Change for permission to repost] Capita’s share price has fallen to a new 10-year low today (8 December 2016) after chief executive Andy Parker warned that “near-term headwinds” would hit trading performance in the first half of 2017. The company’s share price of 513p at lunchtime today was 9%… Continue Reading C […]

Devastation writes, SERIOUSLY BAD NEWS Sharp readers will remember the plan announced in 2015 to shrink the “estate” of the DWP by 20% over the next few years. Well, here are some examples of this move in Glasgow – where a whopping HALF of all Jobcentres will close!!!!!! This is devastating news, because thousands of […]

Report by CJ6.30PM-8.30PM Monday 21st Nov 2016 Unite Housing Workers and Social Housing Residents meeting. Only 6 people including CJ and Tim B. Discussed problems with social housing providers for workers and tenants, so in both our interests to get together. Another meeting pencilled in for 30thJan 2017. Nice coffees and luxury biscuits.Noon-1.15pm Weds 23 […]

Today, Netpol supporters received our November 2016 newsletter in their email in-boxes. It is now also available online here. If you would like to receive future email updates, sign up to Netpol’s ‘announcements’ list here. We would also like to ask for your help: if you think the work we undertake is important and worth … The post Read our November 2016 new […]